it ain't spring, but it's something

There has been a Blood Knot Magazine [sic] article making the blog rounds lately. It is about the types of customers one might encounter as a fly shop employee. It is funny, and parts of it ring true to this particular fly shop employee, but of course it is incomplete.

To wit- I happen to have two customers that were not accurately described in said piece. Following the format of the above mentioned article, they could be described thusly:

SOPHISTICATED ACADEMIC BADASS (Male 50s? and 60s?) They are academics, artists in fact, though one or both may dispute that moniker. They’ve been at the fishing game a while and know what’s what. They have a various and assorted collection of well-worn Patagonia and Orvis gear, probably more than fifty rods between them, yet they continue to support the shop generously . They are accomplished fly tiers, some might even say neurotic, who order lead eyes by the hundreds and entire dyed pheasant skins two or three at a clip, despite the fact that they could supply a fly shop’s entire tying inventory from their personal stash for some not insignificant number of years. We’ve fished together several times and they could both wade me into the ground. They are hard as nails. ANNUAL FISHING DAYS = 1000.

One of them gave me an articulated crayfish pattern two weeks ago which I tied on first today, my first smallmouth mission of the new year. I promptly hooked a nice 17” fish and then said fish promptly spit the hook.

The other gave me an articulated crayfish pattern two weeks ago, very similar to the first sans rabbit strip claws, and I tied it on sometime later today and caught a decent 12” fish, whose likeness can be found below.